Ballast Water tank for ballast?

[Soundguy]

Yep, I realized all that. It was the easy handling and ability to transport water that made the idea stick in my head.

You could always make one outta concrete. i used an old drawbar.. some long bolts, washers and nuts.. a surplus cattle feed tub, and a piece of bar stock and made a nifty 3pt weight.. great balalst for a loader.

My price was less than 20$ for the bags of sackrete, plus the od and end hardware i scrounged up out of the scrap or junk pile.

Time to build, 20 minutes.. and I can reclaim the drawbar if i ever want to junk the chunk.. it's metrely bolted to the bottom of the chunk, via the trapped large bolts.. just spin off a couple nuts and go. I keep a couple pieces of timber where I park the tractor.. to lift the chunk and set it down. I spaced it so that the chunk is of fthe ground when at rest.

Soundguy

 

[Timber]

Well you can certainly get a thousand pounds of Ballast with a 55 gallon drum using cement. The thing with cement is the cement is the wt. and doesn’t rely on the drum to support it. If you put a different material in it that is heavier but not a solid I think the drum wall will experience metal fatigue and fail or leak. I know an Ink tote that had what they call extender in it is a water base and mounted to a pallet is a great way to transport water but I wouldn't want to work with it as Ballast

 

[BTDT]

Watertanks.com has square, rectangular, and different size and shape tanks for all kinds of applications. If you had a cover for your rops you could put a square tank on top, carry water for your trees and even (just kidding) install a shower. Might be kind of top heavy on slopes. Yes, I know, you would have to fabricate some way to support front, but you probably have been wanting a canopy anyway, right?

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Take a soda bottle with a cap, and half fill it. Shake it and notice the sloshing. Then take the same bottle and fill it completely and put the cap back on. Shake it and see if you notice a difference. You will notice a difference as the water will not slosh, as it is cannot, since it has no where to go....

Oh man.....I tried that experiment with a barley pop and all it did was make my brew go flat and spray all over the recliner.

 

[Opti-Mist]

I made mine like Soundguy except that I placed a piece of plastic pipe through the weight so that the linkage drawbar was removeable. It was located above center so the weight just hung on the drawbar without the top link being involved. Yes, it did/does swing a bit.

 

[Soundguy]

Watertanks.com has square, rectangular, and different size and shape tanks for all kinds of applications. If you had a cover for your rops you could put a square tank on top, carry water for your trees and even (just kidding) install a shower. Might be kind of top heavy on slopes. Yes, I know, you would have to fabricate some way to support front, but you probably have been wanting a canopy anyway, right?

Funny you should mention this. i saw a mowing crew that was using ZTR mowers. i saw one with an old ? water pressure tank.. say.. 50g, bolted tot he back o fthe rops, and the guy driving along spot spraying grass in cracks in the side of the road.

Was the hokiest looking rig I've seen in a while... ( and I've made some pretty hokey things... )

Soundguy

 

[Soundguy]

I made mine like Soundguy except that I placed a piece of plastic pipe through the weight so that the linkage drawbar was removeable. It was located above center so the weight just hung on the drawbar without the top link being involved. Yes, it did/does swing a bit.

My drawbar is also re-claimable.. it is just held on the bottom with a few nuts.

Soundguy

 

[flusher]

Just brainstorming here (talk about a tempest in a tea pot ) but I was wondering if anyone made, or knew how to make, some sort of water tank that would attach to the three point hitch for ballast. I realize that water only weighs 8 pounds per gallon, but something the size of a 55 gallon drum would give you around 440 pounds on the rear. I see several advantages to something like this. First, easy to handle. You can fill it once you have it attached. When empty, it would be easy to move by hand. Second, it would allow you to simply transport water if you needed to. There were several stretches last summer when it got real dry here and I was concerned about a couple of young trees dying. I carried water in the bucket to water them. That is slow and tedious (water slops out). Just a thought. Probably already been done, but anyone have any thoughts?

I prefer concrete (130-140 lb/cu ft) vs water (62 lb/cu ft).
Here's the ballast arrangement for my 21-hp B7510HST/LA302 FEL. That's three 120 lb concrete weights and about 250 lb of box blade. Imbedded U-bolts and fence post pieces help get a grip on the weights. Get's the job done.

 

[BTDT]

I prefer concrete (130-140 lb/cu ft) vs water (62 lb/cu ft).
Here's the ballast arrangement for my 21-hp B7510HST/LA302 FEL. That's three 120 lb concrete weights and about 250 lb of box blade. Imbedded U-bolts and fence post pieces help get a grip on the weights. Get's the job done.

Good idea, but he was also wanting to water his trees.

 

[djw250]

I can vouch for the effectiveness of water as ballast. We used to use an old Allis-Chalmers WC for a spray tractor on the farm when I was a kid. It had a 110 gallon tank mounted in a cradle with a boom on the back of the tractor. When it was full, it was all you could do to get going in the higher gears without lifting the front wheels off the ground. My brother decided to take a short cut into a field one day through a ditch with a full tank, and the tractor promptly stood straight up until it drug the tank on the ground! To this day I don't know how that tractor didn't flip over backward. Once my Dad knew he was OK, he was ready to kill him since it tore up the tank and spilled 110 gallons of treflan on the ground. I don't think anything grew there for about 10 years.